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Tonight ABC television will broadcast The Great Global
Warming Swindle. More to the point, it will swaddle the
controversial documentary in a radioactive suit made up of an
interview with director Martin Durkin by one of the national
broadcaster's current affairs tough nuts, Tony Jones, a panel
discussion among carefully chosen experts and a website that
provides links to eight earlier ABC programs about climate
change.

Rarely, if ever, has a documentary shown on the ABC been
surrounded by such an elaborate buffer zone.

Durkin's program will also be broadcast on ABC2 and on ABC News
Radio.

The website devoted to it at ABC Online asks viewers to take
part in a poll whose results will be aired soon after the program
is screened and to send in their comments by email or video.

Does this mean the ABC does not believe in the documentary's
explosive claims that climate change is a hoax perpetrated by a
conspiracy between scientists and a left-dominated media?

Does it mean the ABC's board, which includes three right-wing
cultural warriors, has influenced ABC decision-making in selecting
a documentary whose claims have been contested by many
scientists?

Or is the screening simply a shining example of the national
broadcaster's recently updated editorial policies that enshrine
balance?

First, some background. In March, Durkin's documentary was
screened in England on Channel 4, a not-for-profit broadcaster
funded partly by the British Government and partly by licence fees
from commercial networks. It is known both for screening Big
Brother and acclaimed documentaries such as The Falling
Man.

According to The Great Global Warming Swindle, human
beings do have an impact on climate but it is minute compared with
the vast natural forces, especially the sun, that are continually
pushing global temperatures one way or the other.

The program's supporters believe it is a definitive answer to
former US vice-president Al Gore's award-winning documentary An
Inconvenient Truth.

Its detractors believe Swindle is propaganda, not a
documentary, and that not only are its claims of a conspiracy
theory outrageous but its claims to scientific validity are
virtually non-existent.

Within days of its screening in England, the ABC's head of
programming, Marena Manzoufas, requested a preview tape.

The 90-minute documentary was trimmed to 55 minutes - partly for
international release and partly to remove references to one
scientist who said his quotations had been misrepresented,
according to the ABC's head of television, Kim Dalton.

Distributors in Germany, Canada, Spain and the United States
have bought the rights to The Great Global Warming Swindle,
but Dalton says it has only been screened in Britain so far.

He flatly denies suggestions of influence by ABC board members
in airing the program.

"There is no truth whatsoever that any ABC board members get
involved in program decision-making on ABC television," he
said.

"Those decisions are entirely my prerogative."

His comments were reinforced by board member and controversial
historian Keith Windschuttle, who said yesterday he had not seen
the documentary and had nothing to do with the ABC's decision.

"The ABC board does not get involved in individual programs.
That is simply not how it operates," Dr Windschuttle said.

He would not comment on whether he believed in man-made climate
change but it is believed he is a climate-change sceptic.

Another board member, Janet Albrechtsen, did not respond to
requests for an interview, even though she devoted her regular
column in The Australian to the topic yesterday.

Published without a declaration of her board membership,
Albrechtsen's column lambasted those who attended or watched the
Live Earth concerts last weekend.

Strangely, she did not mention the controversial documentary by
name, but wrote: "The Kyoto (Protocol) period was framed around a
classic progressive agenda, defined by symbolism and moral
absolutes, universal diagnoses and universal solutions. That's why
Kyoto was a joke.

"And it's why Al Gore and his Live Earthers, with their
impossible goals, will be sidelined in the same way history has
sidelined other dreamers."

Rather than direct board influence, it is more likely, according
to sources inside the national broadcaster, that the ABC's managing
director, Mark Scott, with his keen antennae for the political
winds blowing in Canberra, decided that screening a documentary
with a message close to the hearts of the Coalition Government
would balance its hostility towards the controversial - and
successful - drama about the waterfront dispute, Bastard
Boys, that was screened in May.

One ABC source said: "There were noises coming from Canberra
when The Great Global Warming Swindle was first aired in the
UK. 'When's the ABC going to run this?' and so on. And if the
Government is returned later this year, you would think there would
be barely anyone standing at the ABC after Bastard Boys,
which showed unionists in a reasonably favourable light."

Inside the broadcaster there are also reports of tension between
Tony Jones, who usually hosts Lateline, and the head of
factual entertainment, Denise Eriksen, over his reportedly tough
questioning of Durkin when he travelled to England last week.

According to the independent news website Crikey, Eriksen also
travelled to London and, without Jones' knowledge, apologised to
Durkin for the "rough treatment".

"Edit suites have been resounding all week to screams of outrage
from Eriksen demanding that tough responses be cut out. Jones has
more than once needed to make clear he will 'walk' rather than
agree to a sanitised show," an "ABC insider" reportedly told
Crikey.

"Eriksen has even gone as far as demanding a written rundown
from Jones as to how he intends to conduct the live to air
discussion after the Swindle film airs. He has refused to
comply. The stand-off may lead to a sudden change of presenter on
Thursday night, so stay tuned."

Jones did not respond to requests for an interview yesterday. A
spokeswoman for Eriksen said: "We are not going to even dignify
such an inaccurate report with a comment."

Australian of the Year Tim Flannery, author of The Weather
Makers, said the documentary's screening was "just a total
distraction that will only serve to delay urgent action that is
needed on climate change".

He said: "The debate is over. Even the American President,
George Bush, who has been denying climate change for years, has
come on board at the G8 leaders' meeting in June when he said the
United States would join the United Nations-led process on
developing a global approach to tackling climate change."

At the meeting in Germany, Mr Bush said: "The US will be
actively involved, if not taking the lead, in a post-Kyoto
framework, a post-Kyoto deal."

Dalton believes the interest and debate spurred by the Durkin
program will be "good TV".

Asked if the make-up of the expert panel that will discuss the
program accurately reflects the consensus of views on climate
change in the scientific community, Dalton said: "There is no doubt
global warming sceptics are very much in the minority.

"But they are a very vocal minority. They still have support
among some high-profile commentators and among some in the
scientific community."

He added: "The ABC is in the business of showing programs that
allow discussion and debate. We are not being hijacked, to use your
word, by a vocal minority."

He pointed to the range of programs on the ABC that accept
man-made climate change is a reality and urge action, including
Carbon Cops.